When it came to Romania, Veronica didn't actually have a lot of information about the place. She had grown up in the mid-western United States and never traveled outside of the states. Sure, she had dreamed of traveling the world, but it just wasn't realistic because she had to focus on becoming the best successor if she wanted to inherit her parents' bed and breakfast.
Most of the information she had about the place were from watching travel shows like 'Bizarre Foods'. Even the international cooking class she had taken in college had focused on big-name countries like China, Japan, Scotland, or Russia more so than the smaller countries like Romania. The social media videos she watched where she learned about Indonesian food also tended to have more of a focus on Asia with places like Malaysia and even India being highlighted. That didn't mean that Veronica herself wasn't interested in places like Romania, but it did mean that her perspective on the country was very limited.
Still, that didn't mean that she was any less passionate about the third floor menu than she had been about the others. She was still eager to share the many wonderful cuisines from her old world. Besides, if anything, making a more authentic menu would allow her to experience some of the things she had missed out on while she was still living in her original world. Well, it would be a waste to spend her mana on food all of the time when she only had a limited amount of it being received right now, but she hoped that wouldn't always be the case.
As she wanted to limit the amount of dungeon points being spent on research, she decided to pare down the menu to only four light fare options, four hearty fare options, four desserts, and eight drink options. Half of the entrees would be vegetarian while half would have meat. Even if it was possible there would no longer be an Elven kingdom outside her dungeon by the time she regained access to the outside world, it wasn't like vegetarian food was bad, so it would be fine. The libations were similarly divided with half being alcoholic and half being non-alcoholic. It was unlikely there would be children in her dungeon, but it wasn't like adults always wanted to get drunk either.
While it was hardly authentic, she also decided to go with a spooky twist on the Romanian dishes to match the haunted catacombs theme of the main dungeon. The inn and tavern's theme were always loosely tied to the main dungeon's theme, so it was only fitting that the spooky themes carry over as well.
The light fare menu ended up being deviled eggs for 20 DP per serving, zombie's Cascaval pane for 25 DP per serving, haunted forest ciorba for 30 DP a bowl, and cursed ardei copti for 25 DP per serving. The deviled eggs weren't very authentic as she didn't have things like olives to garnish them with. However, the filling was dyed green to help carry over the creepy theme. Cascaval pane was just a type of fried cheese made from Cascaval cheese. The breading would be dyed black with edible charcoal while a red pepper jam placed on top of it would give a bloody vibe. Ciorba was essentially just another word for soup, so the haunted forest ciorba was just a wild mushroom soup. Then, the cursed ardei copti was a traditional roasted pepper salad, which was very similar to the cucumber salad from the second floor.
The research costs for all of this totaled 680 dungeon points as she needed large jars of mayonnaise, large jars of mustard, bottles of green food dye, large jars of thick-sliced Cascaval cheese, large jars of edible charcoal powder, jars of red pepper jam, jars of sour cream, crates of lemons, bags and bins of black rice, crates of red, yellow, and orange bell peppers, jars of minced black garlic, and jars of black sesame seeds. Most of the black variations of ingredients were being used to give a cursed appearance to the food. Of course, things like the black garlic would also offer a slightly different flavor than the more common variety, but Veronica was sure the final dishes would still taste just fine.
For the hearty menu, she decided to go with ghastly mamaliga for 20 DP a serving, witch's meat patties for 25 DP a serving, stuffed jack-o'-lantern peppers for 35 DP a serving, and vampire's sarmale for 40 DP a serving. The mamaliga was, essentially, just a cornmeal porridge with wild mushrooms. Meanwhile, meatballs were actually a big deal in Romania, so the witch's meat patties were just a variation on that. Then, borrowing inspiration from Halloween stuffed peppers from America, she turned the traditional tomatoey rice stuffed peppers from Romania into stuffed jack-o'-lantern peppers. Finally, there was the vampire's sarmale, which was just stuffed cabbage with an emphasis on red and black ingredients to make it more spooky.
The research for that included 60 DP to research a bag of cornmeal, 70 DP for a bin of cornmeal, 40 DP for a crate of red onions, 100 DP for a large jar of ground pork, 30 DP for a jar of tomato paste, 60 DP for a bag of pumpkin seeds, 100 DP for a large jar of ground beef, 40 DP for a crate of red cabbage, 100 DP for a large jar of smoked boar bacon, 14 DP for shaker of black sea salt, and 14 DP to research shaker of red pepper flakes. That was another 628 DP down the drain.
The desserts were something that Veronica couldn't help but feel tempted to create some of on the spot. It had been so long since she had been able to have some sweets. While things like coffee, pectin, and sugar were almost as shelf-stable as things like flour and rice, Veronica hadn't exactly shown much self-control when consuming things when she found herself first locked up in the dungeon. Having a cup of coffee and something to snack on had helped her feel more sane in the early years, but it also meant she couldn't exactly make sweets after a decade or so had passed. Meanwhile, rice made with bouillon or even plain water was a lot less appetizing, so it had been consumed much more slowly. It was only once she started to grow desperate to taste something just to keep the monotony away that it too had disappeared.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Things would be more difficult to manage in the tavern without Elora and Eldrin to help out on the first floor. Plus, more floors with more taverns only complicated things even further. In order to combat the problem ahead of time, she had to make most of the sweets ready-to-eat rather than from scratch.
Would you like to spend 60 DP to research possessed sweet bread using the [Base Resources] flour, wild yeast, eggs, cacao beans, raisins, black dye, sugar, milk, butter, chestnuts, and white dye?
Yes
No
Would you like to spend 120 DP to research murderous cheese donuts using the [Base Resources] milk, eggs, flour, sugar, wild yeast, vanilla, sour cream, red gooseberries, and charcoal powder?
Yes
No
Would you like to spend 120 DP to research Dracula's amandine using the [Base Resources] flour, sugar, butter, wild yeast, cacao beans, rum, water, black dye, eggs, vanilla, heavy cream, raspberries, and red dye?
Yes
No
The ingredients list didn't quite give the full picture of the ingredients required. The possessed sweet bread used black food dye, white edible glitter, and cocoa powder, not just black dye, white dye, and cacao beans. The cacao beans had been received in a ground form as part of a food tribute she had received shortly before the dungeon was locked down. Still, it was a pretty big deal as it could unlock all things chocolate for her tavern. As for the cheese donuts, they actually used cottage cheese, not milk, but she didn't have that separately researched, so it was just listed as its base ingredients. Then there was the amandine, which was a layered pastry with chocolate, whipped cream, raspberry glaze, and plenty of glitter and dye used to make it extra creepy.
Of course, that was also just three desserts, not four. The last one was banshee's crepes, which she only had to research powdered sugar, black food dye, and strawberry jam for. She already had all of the other ingredients and it wasn't exactly that hard to make a crepe once you had the crepe technique down. That was something she had mastered in college, alongside flipping an egg in a pan without a spatula. Why her chef instructor cared about such things she wasn't sure, but it was certainly something most of her peers had mastered by the time they finished with that particular class.
Compared to the 30 MP a box to create a box of possessed sweet bread, she'd be charging 20 DP for a few slices of it. She'd likely end up making the cost of researching it back before she even sold an entire box of the stuff. The other ingredients were similar with murderous cheese donuts selling for 25 DP each, banshee's crepes selling for 30 DP, and Dracula's amandine selling for 35 DP. Even if she wasn't personally making the desserts, there was still a clear difference in the amount of labor that would normally go into making a layered dessert like amandine, so it was always going to be more expensive than the others.
Finally, there was the libations menu. That included water for 1 DP, blackberry tea for 10 DP, apple cider for 20 DP, socata soda for 20 DP, harrowing horinca for 35 DP, phantom's zmeurata for 35 DP, ghoul's afinata for 35 DP, and blood wine for 40 DP per glass. The apple cider wasn't fizzy like the elderflower (socata) soda, nor did it involve alcohol, but it did require fermenting, so it was still a similar price as the soda. All of the alcohols were cocktails, which would require more effort to put together than just pouring alcohol into a glass. However, it still wasn't a big deal to add some lemon juice or two different liquids to the same glass, so the labor increase wasn't a huge deal like it was with the desserts.
The research costs ended up totaling 304 dungeon points as she needed a large jar of blackberry tea, bottles of apple cider, bottles of socata soda, bottles of brandy, black currant liqueur, cocktail glasses, bottles of black vodka, raspberry liqueur, large jars of raspberries, blueberry liqueur, large jars of blueberries, edible black glitter, spice shakers of cloves, and bottles of red food dye. Admittedly, most of the cocktails were just different berry flavors with an otherwise very similar makeup.
After everything was researched, there was 319,727 DP leftover. It would likely take a lot of heavy spending before she'd drop below 300,000 dungeon points. However, the cost to unlock new floors would only continue to increase, so Veronica had no doubt that it would only be a matter of years before she'd be running low. Hopefully, she could pace herself so that she'd have enough for a few decades, at least. She didn't want to be locked up in this place for that long, but then she didn't really have a choice in that. Plus, the presence of adventurers wouldn't change that she was a prisoner. Only dying would do that and it would seem she wasn't allowed to end her own life, the dungeon core wouldn't allow that.